The Kitten Apocalypse
by Dayja
Summary: Tony thinks he may have been awake just a bit too long when his wrench turns into a kitten. But is it another hallucination brought on by sleep deprivation? Or is something more sinister going on? And why all the kittens?


Tony had been awake for roughly 48 hours when his wrench stopped cooperating. To be fair, he had tried to sleep at around the 16 hour mark. And then the 28 hour mark. And he had even briefly drifted at around 42 hours, only to be startled awake again when he fell off his stool, which in turn had sent his heart racing and destroyed any chance that moving himself to the couch would result in sleep. So between the lurking shadows of his own subconscious, his racing thoughts that kept driving at him to create, and an unwise choice to drink coffee from a forty ounce cup (it was clean! The regular mugs were all dirty!), he had been up for rather longer than was considered healthy.

That was no excuse for his wrench to stop holding onto the nut and instead to twist about and latch onto his hand with needle sharp claws.

Thanks to sleep deprivation, it took Tony ridiculously long to make sense of the situation, and ultimately, he didn't really.

"Stop that," he said to his wrench, and the wrench stared at him with large blue eyes, then obligingly twisted back around and attacked the bolt with tooth and claw. Satisfied, though still vaguely puzzled and sensing that something had gone wrong, Tony continued to unscrew the nut from the bolt while his wrench continued to attempt to sink its claws and teeth into the metal.

He had to switch hands to continue the rotation because the wrench refused to let go so he could reposition it. As he continued to turn the wrench, he brought his now free hand up to his mouth to suck at the tiny bleeding scratches that marred his wrist.

"Sir…" JARVIS's voice intruded upon Tony's mechanical daze. "There appear to be intruders."

Tony blinked. His wrench dropped the freed nut and let it go skittering across the floor where what Tony vaguely thought should be his screwdriver leapt upon it zealously. His wrench squirmed to go after its prize, before giving up and latching onto Tony once more with tooth and claw.

"Ow! Bad wrench!" Tony scolded it, and it finally escaped to run after the screwdriver. Except he didn't remember his wrench or his screwdriver having fur before, let alone claws and teeth and large eyes. Now that Tony looked around, he discovered that a great number of his tools weren't quite as he remembered. DUM-E was gently attempting to sweep a number of small furry mewling bodies away in the general direction of the door. He was only marginally successful, considering the number of furry creatures hanging off the broom or, in the case of one particularly adventurous calico version, hanging off of DUM-E himself.

"Jarvis?" Tony said, staring at the ridiculous number of tiny feline creatures climbing about his workshop, "Am I hallucinating kittens?"

"I have identified 28 intruders within the workshop and 2,341 within the tower," JARVIS answered, his voice sounding slightly confused. "As far as my sensors are able to measure them, they all appear to be normal kittens. They are not a hallucination or hologram."

Tony considered this new information as he slowly staggered to his feet. The small white kitten he had formerly thought to be his wrench dashed at him and viciously attacked the bottom of his pants, luckily avoiding skin this time.

"Right," Tony said. There was obviously only one explanation for this situation.

He really, really needed sleep. Or he was already asleep. Either way, he carefully shuffled across the floor to avoid stepping on anything, moved a sleeping bundle of black fur off his pillow, and lay down. The white kitten finally allowed itself to be shaken off his pants only to decide to play with his blanket. Tony let it, just as he allowed the ten or so other bundles of soft, purring fur to curl up on top of him as his eyes drifted close.

The last thing he noticed before he fell into a deep, serene sleep was the white kitten's almost non-existent weight settling directly over his arc reactor.

'I really ought to be panicking over that,' he thought to himself, and then he was asleep.

The other inhabitants within the tower were rather more awake when the invasion arrived and so reacted rather more cognitively.

Natasha was throwing a knife at a target and so saw the exact moment the kittens arrived. Her eye was on her knife from the moment it left her hand, and she knows she didn't blink, but it wasn't a knife that was sunk into the bullseye. A black kitten with a white spot on its nape in the exact shape of an hourglass had its tiny claws sunk into the target's fabric, its long tail lashing aggressively.

Natasha stared at the kitten, then speculatively glanced at her other hand, the one still holding the second knife she had intended to use to knock the first knife out of its place. She briefly considered throwing it. Either it would become a second kitten or it would skewer the first and remove whatever threat this unexpected phenomenon might possess, or possibly it would break through whatever it was that made her think she saw a kitten in the first place.

She did not skewer the kitten. Nor did she skewer the second kitten she saw moving in the corner of her eye. Nor the writhing mass of tiny creatures struggling to crawl free from a nearby quiver. Not that she could have anyway, the solid feel of her knife had already been replaced by the soft yielding body of something warm and alive and purring.

"JARVIS," she said instead of raining down kitten murder, "I may be compromised."

"My sensors detect the body heat, vital signs, weight, motion, and visual and auditory data congruent with the arrival of 2,293 young felines and counting," JARVIS answered, his tone mechanical but somehow reassuring. "Their arrival corresponds with the disappearance of numerous tools, weapons, and other small items. I cannot explain this phenomenon."

Natasha considered this. She held up the kitten that had once been her knife by the nape of its neck and stared into large green eyes. Like the other knife, it was black, but its hourglass was on its left hind leg rather than its back. 'It' also turned out to be 'she'. She responded to Natasha's gaze by trying to gouge out an eyeball with her tiny claws. Natasha easily evaded the attempt and smiled in approval.

"You look tiny and cute, but are in fact a vicious killer," she told her. "I will call you Left Knife. Sinistra for short."

Then she went to the target and retrieved the other kitten which she dubbed Dextera. The kittens still spilling out of the quiver she ignored. Those could be Clint's problem. Instead she went to find the others.

Steve and Thor, at the moment of the transformation, had been sparring in the gym. On this occasion they had gone with full on battle, which meant that Steve used his shield and Thor used his hammer and they tried to kill each other without actually killing each other.

Steve had just sent his shield to bounce off a wall and, hopefully, sweep Thor off his feet from behind before ricocheting back into Steve's waiting arms. He was partly successful in that he got the angles right, but not at all in that Thor jumped and failed to be taken down. And then his shield bounced off the ground and sprung back towards Steve in the form of a snarling beast.

Steve may or may not have made a startled shriek when his own shield seemed to turn on him and sink its teeth playfully into the thankfully armored fabric covering his arm.

Thor managed to stop his intended lightning attack before he fried his now shieldless friend and the creature latched onto Steve's arm solely because his hammer stopped building up lightning or even allowing him to fly and in fact yowled at him for trying to swing it by its tail while they plummeted together back to the earth.

After the first shock at their sudden appearance, they discovered that their shield and hammer had not turned into horrible monsters but in fact had turned into lion cubs.

"What magic is this?" Thor demanded while his lion cub apparently got over the indignity of being held by its tail as well as the potential harm from falling and was now attempting to pounce on Thor's cape.

Steve just stared at where his beloved shield had been, not seeming to even notice the way the cub was chewing on Steve's arm.

He did finally come out of his stupor when the cubs noticed the arrival of yet more kittens, these most decidedly of the housecat variety and therefore the perfect size to make a snack for a lion cub.

Steve's most definitely did shriek in horror this time and he grabbed up what he was pretty sure used to be a towel but now was fluffy and white and tiny before one of the cubs could pounce on it.

What ensued was a race against tragedy as Steve ran around the room grabbing handfuls of fluffy white former-towels before his shield or Thor's hammer could manage to eat one.

Thor watched with a puzzled expression but settled on capturing the lion cubs rather than the futile effort to hold every single kitten out of harm's way.

"Why…why kittens?!" Steve yelled to the room at large. He had something like twenty of them at that point, gathered in his arms and clinging to his uniform and one that had managed to climb on top of his head.

"Behave," Thor told the cub who had been his hammer when it tried to squirm free. His hammer considered this, before twisting about to bat at the other cub. Steve considered the logistics of picking up the last of the kittens when his arms were full. He scooped one with his foot.

In another part of the tower, Bruce Banner had been working in his lab. Unlike Tony, he was nowhere near 48 hours without sleep, but it had been nearly six at that point without a proper break. So it might be excused that Bruce was a little slow on the uptake when he began to pour a vial of something extremely acidic over what had been another vial but was, now, a very tiny ball of orange fluff.

Bruce might also be excused for reacting to the realization that he was on the verge of pouring acid onto a kitten by jerking the vial backwards and splashing said acid towards himself.

Of course, he had protective gear on. Unfortunately, it is also a seldom expressed fact that abject terror for the safety of others is, in fact, a larger trigger than rage when it came to the Other Guy. Between the triple trigger of a kitten in jeopardy, the shock of the kitten's sudden appearance, and the danger of the liquid now eating its way through his lab coat, Bruce never stood a chance.

The Hulk erupted free with such sudden violence that there was a very real chance of a horrible death for the very kitten Bruce had so carefully avoided hurting as the Hulk's appearance sent numerous volatile vials crashing together.

Luckily for all involved, by that point the majority of those vials were also kittens and the few liquids that did spill turned out to be not particularly harmful.

The Hulk bellowed, his head twisting wildly about for the danger that generally threatened when he appeared.

Something tiny crawled onto his foot. The Hulk stopped bellowing and looked down in confusion. There was a small and fluffy creature settled on his foot. In fact, there were small and fluffy creatures all about the room.

"Fluffy," Hulk told it. He felt…confused. This was not something he had ever faced before. Usually when he arrived there things to fight and things to protect. He didn't see anything to fight, and while the kittens were tiny, they didn't seem to be in danger. In fact, the largest danger to the kittens at present was the Hulk himself. He was well aware of what happened when he stepped on smaller things. Usually he did it on purpose, wanting to smash whatever it was. But the idea of smashing one of the tiny delicate creatures made something inside Hulk hurt.

He had to get away from them.

This, it turned out, was quite difficult. There was already a kitten on his foot, and anywhere he stepped there was potentially a small creature waiting to be squished. Normally he'd just jump as far as he could go, but the room was too small to try that. He tried to tiptoe away, but to his consternation the kittens followed him, darting about his feet until a particularly awkward step, more resembling a pirouette than anything, sent him stumbling and the next thing he knew he was sitting on the ground.

The kittens, far from being squished or terrorized, were delighted. There was a whole swarm of them eagerly crawling up his pants, the only clothing to have survived thanks to Tony's help in making the Hulk-proof material, and leaping on his toes and rubbing their tiny bodies against him. Soon they were all over him, tiny and delicate and fearless and purring. Some curled up on his belly, some crawled all the way up to his head, some ran up and down his arms and legs, playfully jumping on each other, and some explored the dark cavern that was the space between the Hulk's back and the wall.

The Hulk did not dare to move. He barely dared to breathe. He was not equipped to handle this. Unfortunately, his very anxiety stopped him from retreating to let Bruce take over.

"Small fluffies, not safe," he tried to tell them sternly. The kittens were not impressed. Several of them were purring. With a huff, the Hulk carefully settled in his position. He would look after the kittens until Bruce came back. And woe to anyone who tried hurt one.

Clint, of all the Avengers, was pretty much kitten free at the time of the invasion.

This was because he happened to be in the vent over the kitchen at the time, and there was pretty much nothing in the vent that could be kitten-ified. There wasn't even a dust bunny as Tony's vents were kept ridiculously clean by his team of cleaning bots.

Despite popular rumors, Clint didn't actually live in the vents. He didn't even spent a significant portion of his time in them. They were most definitely not his security blanket. That was a vicious lie and one day, when he was slightly less scared of her, Natasha would pay.

He just happened to be up there on that particular day because he was doing his usual security check. Sure, Tony had a superior security system, but that was no reason not to occasionally make sure Clint knew his way around the tower nor that he couldn't search out potential weaknesses that a civilian like Tony might not have thought about.

For one, he had vents that were large enough for a person to crawl through.

Okay, the vents did have lasers, which JARVIS kindly turned off when Clint went by, and an army of cleaning bots that were also equipped with numerous security features, and JARVIS had sensors and even cameras all through them, but still. What if someone managed to take out JARVIS? At least one of them needed to know their way around the vent system just in case.

So that's what Clint was doing. He may also have been resting his eyes a bit while in there. Vents are nice quiet places for naps, after all.

The next thing he knew, the world had gone very, very strange.

It was not 'my weapons and/or tools are now kittens' level of strange. It was 'why do I have paws instead of hands?' level of strange.

If Clint had been fully aware of the situation the entire tower was currently facing, he might have considered his new form and decided that whatever was turning things into kittens had been unable to find anything around Clint to transform (apparently clothes didn't count) and so had transformed Clint himself.

Clint was not aware of the situation. All he knew was that the world had grown, his clothes had vanished completely, and he now had paws and fur and a tail. Also, the world was shockingly loud considering he had turned his hearing aids off for his nap. The vent was just reflective enough for him to suspect he was now a cat. How was this his life?

"Mr. Barton?" the voice of JARVIS echoed through the vent.

'Yes', Clint attempted to say, only to discover he lacked the right kind of vocal chords, teeth, and lips to speak. At any rate, he made a noise. After a few other attempts at proper sounds, Clint lifted one of his paws and nodded it towards one of the cameras.

"If you could find your way to the common room, Ms. Romanoff is waiting." JARVIS said, apparently accepting the paw wave as evidence that the cat was indeed Clint and that Clint was still capable of understanding.

Natasha was an odd choice, Clint thought; he would have first gone to Thor, who might know something about transforming people into animals and back again, or to Tony or Bruce, who might science him back. Natasha seemed more likely to laugh than to be helpful. Still, he cautiously attempted to walk on four paws.

It was easier than he expected; his legs already seemed to know how they were supposed to move and his tail moved almost of its own accord, helping to balance him. In fact, he had never felt so agile in his life; this body seemed made to move. At least he felt that way until he managed to stumble over his own paw and tumbled over. Thank goodness there was no one there to see that. Unless one counted JARVIS. Which, come to think of it, might actually be worse. Clint could very well be the star of the next cat video to go viral.

Glaring suspiciously at the nearest camera, and trying to pretend the tumble hadn't happened, he went on more cautiously.

The opening to the common room led to a bookcase which, when he was Clint, was easy to climb up and down. As a cat, he had lost considerable mass, not to mention height. The drop down to the top shelf actually looked quite formidable. Still, he had leapt proportionally further as a human. Clint jumped.

He was right, that body was made for movement. The jump actually went quite smoothly, landing him exactly where he wanted to be. The climb down the bookshelf was rather less graceful, as he essentially had to go head first. It was the first time he noticed he had claws and he instinctively sunk them into the wood in response to his rather precarious position.

"Clint?" said someone quite large and too close, and he turned his head to see Natasha. She wasn't laughing at him. She was staring quizzically at him while two small black kittens did the same from her shoulders.

"Mew," he answered, because his paws were too busy holding him up to attempt any form of sign language and he couldn't exactly say, 'Of course it's me,'.

Her face remained perfectly serious but he was sure he saw her eyes smiling. He was really never going to live this down.

"It seems we have a situation," she told him, in the same tone she shared any mission information. "Cap and Thor's weapons have turned into lion cubs. We thought it safer to keep them away from you while you're…compromised. Bruce has become Hulk but that situation seems to be contained for now, as apparently Hulk is afraid to move and hurt one of his kittens. Stark is sleeping."

What Clint tried to say in response to that was probably slightly cruder than the questioning 'mew' he actually did say.

"Apparently he hasn't slept in over 48 hours and when his tools turned into kittens he assumed it was a hallucination and went to sleep. For the moment, it's probably better to let him. So far, you're the first sentient transformation, all other kittens have been created from inanimate objects."

'Well, what are we going to do about it?' Clint would have asked if he could have. As it was, he settled on a particularly vicious look.

"I've called Coulson," Natasha answered calmly, as though that settled the entire matter. Come to think of it, it probably did. Then Steve carefully burst into the room, arms full of white kittens.

"Clint?" he asked, staring at where Clint still clung to the bookcase, not quite making up his mind to climb the rest of the way down.

"Mew?"

"Thor is watching the lion cubs," Steve said, "I thought I should get the towels…er…the kittens out before they ate them. So what's the plan?"

When Coulson did arrive, he had a small striped fur ball sitting on top of his head. He was also missing his tie.

"It happened in the elevator on the way up." Coulson announced. "I've named him Stripes. He's my newest agent."

It turned out, Coulson was no help at all. Though he was very efficient in arranging for cat toys, litter boxes, and food to be sent to the tower.

"I don't wish to alarm you," JARVIS announced, "but the current kitten count within the tower has risen to 3,045. And sir has woken up."

"Well, that's good isn't it?" Steve asked. "That Tony is awake, I mean, not the…er…everything is turning into kittens thing."

The elevator door dinged. What came out was not Tony. Not unless Tony was small enough to fit inside a coffee mug, more black fluff than body, and eyes almost seeming larger than his head. Except, judging from the tiny pinprick of blue light glowing from the kitten's chest, it was, in fact, Tony.

The black kitten trotted across the room, looked around, then mewled pitifully. Clint finally completed his climb from the bookcase and glided over, feeling ridiculously smug when he realized that he, at least, had become a kitten that had almost twice the body mass Tony now possessed. This, if he thought about it, made no sense as that would imply Clint was the older of the two, a fact he absolutely knew to be false. Then again, if they had actually transformed to their proper ages, neither of them would be a kitten at all.

On the other hand, Tony might have been tiny compared to him, but everyone else was disconcertingly huge. And there were numerous other kittens about the room, not even counting the bundle of white fur Steve was cradling, Coulson's stripped head kitten or the two black kittens still clinging to Natasha's shoulders, but also looking down on Clint and Tony speculatively, as though sizing them up. If they belonged to Natasha, they probably were.

"Whatever is happening, it seems to be escalating," Coulson said. "Perhaps we should remove ourselves from the tower. It seems to be a localized phenomenon."

"I have left young Hammer and Shield in the gym," Thor announced suddenly from the doorway. His uniform bore several claw indentions and his cape was rather tattered, but he himself did not seem particularly injured or bloodied. "Do we know what magic has caused this transformation? Neither Hammer nor Shield could explain to me how they came to be."

'You speak cat?!' Clint would have said if he could. What he actually said was "Merowow?"

"I do indeed," Thor answered, looking towards Tony and Clint with confusion. "You have strangely well-developed speech, young feline."

"I've always found it surprising too," Natasha agreed. Clint made more noises. Thor frowned.

"That is rather crude language for a cat as well."

Then a kitten fell from the ceiling, only just being caught and cradled by Coulson before it could fall to serious injury. They all looked up. One of the ceiling lights was now just an empty hole.

"To the helicarrier?" Coulson asked, staring at the yellow furred kitten he still held in his hand. The striped kitten on his head hissed at it.

"I don't know," said Natasha, staring down at Clint and Tony thoughtfully, "I've always wondered what it would be like to be a cat."

'Awesome' Clint said, or rather, 'Mew'. Tony said nothing. He had curled up in a ball next to Clint and gone back to sleep.

"We are going," Coulson told her sternly. "Now." Natasha pouted. Thor scooped up Clint and Tony together. They started towards the elevator.

"Steve," said Coulson, not even bothering to look at him, "You can put your kittens down now."

"Oh," Steve said, staring at his arm full of white fluff, "Right." He carefully settled them on the sofa. It was difficult work. Most of them seemed to be stuck to his uniform like Velcro, and he had to be careful in unhooking them.

He did end up keeping one of them. It was particularly stubborn in clinging to him. Besides, the others got to keep some of the kittens, so why shouldn't he?

It was as the elevator was descending that Tony woke up, glanced around, and said, "Mew?"

"He asks the whereabouts of Bruce," Thor translated.

The elevator paused, then took them to a new floor. When it opened, they did not find Bruce on the other side. Nor did they find the Hulk. It was a kitten, or rather, a cub with black fur, huge paws, huge eyes, and a body roughly the size of a lion. If the body proportions weren't so off, they would have assumed it a fully grown jungle cat. Everyone who wasn't a cat started, reaching for weapons they didn't actually have as they had all been kitten-ized.

None of the kittens, including their teammates, reacted with any particular alarm. In fact, Tony squirmed to go towards the giant furry bundle of death.

"Hulk?" Steve asked cautiously.

The cub made a noise deep in its throat that sounded more like a roar than a mew.

"It is indeed our shield brother," Thor answered in response. "Join us, Hulk; we go to solve this magic that is turning everything into kittens." The hulk seemed just as wary of joining them in the elevator as the others were to invite him in. He might not be quite the same mass of muscles as his humanoid counterpart, but he still looked quite formidable and dangerous, and even somewhat less tame than usual by virtue of actually being a wild animal and not even remotely human in appearance.

The cub made another snarling sort of noise, this time somehow managing to convey something like concern.

"I'm sure your kitten friends will be perfectly safe," Thor assured him. Another kitten fell from the space where a light used to be and landed on the Hulk's back. The Hulk tensed, then relaxed, and walked carefully into the elevator, carrying the small yellow kitten on his back.

Tony hissed at the kitten, then curled up in Thor's hand and closed his eyes again. The elevator continued its way down.

They managed to make it out of the building before anyone else turned into a kitten, though Thor did lose his cape for a young calico.

"It seems it is localized," Coulson told them, after a brief conference with Maria Hill. "No signs anywhere else of anything or anyone turning into a kitten."

"It must be an evil villain plot," Steve suggested. "Perhaps to distract us from something else or to compromise us by turning us all into kittens."

"We think so too," Coulson agreed, "And we're keeping an eye out for any activity."

They arrived at the helicarrier without any difficulty or further kitten-ization. JARVIS reported an update that the kitten count in the tower had risen to 3,302.

Maria Hill, it turned out, was not a cat person. This was not helped by the way the kitten Natasha had dubbed Sinistra attempted to leap from Natasha's shoulder with obviously murderous intent. Luckily, Natasha had sensed the intent to spring in time to snatch her from the air.

"Why did you take the kittens with you from the tower?" Hill demanded. "Surely they should be contained."

"Three of them are our teammates," Steve pointed out. He cuddled his white kitten protectively. Hulk snarled and Hill took an inadvertent step backwards.

"Just keep them away from me," she insisted.

Natasha cocked her head, looked ready say something, and then folded in on herself until all that was left was a sleek black kitten. She did have white markings as well, but as they were on her belly no one could see them. The kitten that was Natasha blinked, and then somehow managed to look incredibly smug. She arched her back, stretching her muscles, before holding up a paw and extending her claws, inspecting her new body's capabilities.

The two kittens who had been on her shoulders were now on the ground with her. They looked at her with something like confusion. Despite their tendency towards violence, they didn't actually look like they intended to attack her. Steve scooped her up anyway, getting claws in his hand for his efforts, though Natasha did give his scratches an apologetic lick afterwards. This wasn't much better considering her tongue was like sandpaper, but Steve got the sentiment behind it all the same.

"So apparently it isn't localized to the tower," Coulson said, sounding fascinated rather than alarmed. "I wonder if it's just you or if it will spread out to the helicarrier now."

'Weirdest apocalypse ever,' Clint mewled.

"I don't know," Thor answered, "What about the invasion of the fish people? Fish should not have human legs."

"If we're discussing weird evil villain plans," Coulson said, "I vote on the plot with the sentient jello."

Tony opened his eyes once again, blinked sleepily, and then said what, if he were human, would have been, 'This is a very persistent dream,' but was, in fact, "Mew merrow meow."

"You are not dreaming," Thor told him. Tony eyed him suspiciously. That is exactly what a dream Thor would say. Also, Thor as a giant who held him in his arms looked odd.

"Do you think we're all going to turn into kittens too?" Steve asked, sounding concerned.

"It does seem likely," Coulson answered.

Hulk made a snarling sort of mewing sound, then suddenly shrank down into a tiny calico ball of cute, roughly the same size as Tony. It was hard to tell which one was bigger as they were both rather fluffy.

"Mew?" said the calico kitten.

"You have been turned into a kitten," Thor explained, "As has friend Tony, Natasha and Clint. We fear some nefarious magic is at work."

"Mew," Bruce answered. It sounded resigned. Then it made an alarmed sound when Steve suddenly grabbed him up just before Dextera could pounce. This was probably for the best for both of them; it was never good for the Hulk to come back so soon and a fight with the giant cub would never have gone well for the kitten.

"Jarvis, how many kittens are in the tower now?" Coulson asked through his connection with the tower.

"Meow," said the voice that answered. Coulson blinked. How was that even possible? Surely a computer could not both become a kitten and still be able to communicate, in cat-speak nonetheless, through his ear piece?

Meanwhile, Tony woke up enough to be indignant over the laws of physics being broken by someone who wasn't him.

'There's no way I'm really a kitten, because even accepting the complete loss in mass, and if the Hulk is possible I'm willing to accept a reversal of that situation is possible, but a kitten's brain is simply not capable of the higher level of cognitive abilities that I'm currently still in possession of, and therefore this cannot possibly be reality and I refuse to believe I'm not dreaming.'

"I've no idea what you're saying," Steve said to the indignant bundle of fur, "But you look adorable when you're trying to be angry."

Tony hissed at him, showing off his teeth. Steve still looked ready to melt from his adorableness. Tony pouted. Life was not fair. And if this really wasn't a dream, Tony rather suspected that he was never going to live this down.

'Hey, I'm cute too!' Clint mewled indignantly. Why was no one gushing over him?

"You are, indeed, quite cute," Thor told him consolingly.

"We really should be finding out how to un-cute everyone," Coulson pointed out. "Any ideas? This seems more in the realm of magic than science."

"Normally I'd attempt to seek council on Asgard," Thor said, "But Mjölnir has become a feline." Kittens, humans, and Aesir all looked at each other.

"If it helps," Hill said, still keeping a healthy distance from the various kittens, former humans and former objects alike, "There's a witch in Central Park shouting about how she has destroyed the Avengers."

'Let's suit up!' Clint meowed.

That is not actually what happened. What happened was all kittens were locked in a containment cell while the non-kittens went to confront the supposed witch.

'Let me out!' Tony demanded, surprisingly loud for such a tiny body, 'This is my dream and I demand to dream it the way I want to, and that means fighting!'

'You know we can't understand you, right?' Natasha answered. Thor, unfortunately, was not a kitten and therefore not trapped with them, and contrary to popular science fiction, they didn't automatically understand each other just because they were all kittens. A 'mew' still sounded like 'mew' to cat ears as well as human.

'Shush,' Bruce mewed at both of them, 'I'm trying to sleep'. Being Hulk, even cat-Hulk, had taken a lot out of him.

The guard outside the door, though slightly confused as to why he was told to guard a cell full of kittens (the knowledge of what was actually going on was above his clearance level), managed to ignore the caterwauling going on inside. He was glad when they finally went quiet. He really shouldn't have been, but not knowing the details, he simply enjoyed the silence, rather than doing the sensible thing like checking that his chargers weren't managing to escape.

As it was, Natasha, Clint, Tony, and , after much prodding from Tony, Bruce managed to use their small sizes and advanced intellects to claw through a panel and squeeze through a vent thought, by the designers of the cell, far too small to be any aid whatsoever in an escape.

Of course, stealing a car when one is a kitten is rather impossible. The other kittens looked at Tony expectantly anyway.

'What?' Tony demanded. 'I don't even have opposable thumbs.'

Luckily, it turned out that the others hadn't left yet, needing as they did to re-weaponize themselves since their preferred weapons were currently prowling around the gym in the tower, assuming the entire gym wasn't a mass of kittens by that point. So they didn't actually need to steal a ride, just hide in one.

If Natasha hadn't been a kitten, she would have taken the time to check the vehicle for renegade kittens before they left. Being a kitten, there was no one except Coulson to think to do that. The fact that he didn't she took to mean that Coulson recognized their rebellion and didn't intend to get in their way. Natasha approved.

In Central Park, there was indeed a young woman glowing with red energy.

"Hello," Coulson said calmly as he walked to meet her. "Any chance you want to give yourself up and undo your spell on the Avengers?"

"I have given the murderer Stark exactly what he deserves, at long last!" the witch answered gleefully, "Why should I wish to undo my good work?"

"Because it's the right thing to do?" Steve asked, following behind Coulson with Thor. He didn't have his shield but he did have a passable back-up. The witch looked surprised to see them.

"How are you not changed into that which you deserve?" she demanded. "Surely a friend of Stark cannot be so pure in heart as to escape the spell?"

"…We deserve to be kittens?" Steve asked.

"…what do you mean kittens?" the witch demanded, starting to sound less villainess and more unsure youth. "That spell should have made Stark into a slug, or possibly a centipede or rat. It is to show his heart upon the outside and undo all that he cares for, all his possessions and family and friends are to share in the curse!"

Almost as though he were explaining, Steve dropped his shield and fell down into the form of a fluffy yellow lion cub. The cub was so startled by the sudden change that he sat down. The witch stared at him in utter confusion.

"I must have gotten it wrong," she decided, "It reflects your heart and not the black villainous heart of the Merchant of Death."

"Mew?" answered a small black furr ball in the vicinity of the witch's feet. The others stared in horror when they realized that Tony had somehow snuck past them all to approach the very powerful witch who apparently had a rather large grudge against him. And even as a kitten, the arc reactor made it rather too obvious exactly who that kitten was.

Clint, Natasha and Steve streaked after him, fur up and hissing at the witch. Bruce probably would have as well, but he had fallen asleep on the way over and was currently oblivious to all the goings on.

"They say you will not harm our friend," Thor announced, rather unnecessarily as the kittens were making that sentiment rather clear. The witch responded by reaching down, seeming completely impervious to any attempts to scratch her, and scooping up the tiny black kitten that was Tony stark, holding him far above the protective reach of the other kittens and standing too far away for the non-kittens to intervene.

"You are the Merchant of Death?" she demanded. "This is the form that reflects your heart, that reveals your true self to the world? This is your great punishment?"

Tony looked back at her, then gave her finger an almost apologetic lick.

She held him up with one hand, and with the other ran red light over his head. Everyone held their breath, unable to come to his rescue, not knowing what was going to happen next. Would they watch her destroy him, inches and feet away and unable to intervene?

"You…are not what I expected," the witch said with a frown. Then she looked down at the kittens still attempting to attack her ankles, and at the people surrounding her at a safe distance with their guns, and at Thor and Coulson who weren't at a safe distance and weren't aiming guns at her but who somehow conveyed a protective danger all the same.

Then both Thor and Coulson collapsed almost at the same moment, Thor into a similar tiny cub as Steve and Coulson into a black furred tiny kitten with a white chest and a small black streak down the middle, rather similar to a tie. Thor and Coulson looked at each other, then warily joined the others at the witch's feet.

She didn't seem to know what to do, then. She could have, probably quite easily, destroyed the tiny creatures around her. She could most definitely have destroyed the kitten held in her hand.

She did not.

"I thought your punishment should be eternal," the witch told Tony, still holding him at eye level, "But I see there is nothing I can do to you that you have not already done to yourself. Your punishment shall last a day, and then all shall be as it was."

Then, in a bright red flash, she was gone. The kitten Tony was somehow in the middle of his teammates, uninjured but trembling and mewling pitifully.

'My teammates,' said Thor, somehow managing to speak clearly even as a cat, 'Let us enjoy this one day holiday the witch has gifted us.'

Clint licked Tony's fur, using his larger size to his advantage to cuddle against the other kitten until he stopped trembling.

'I had hoped you would have sense to stay away from danger,' Coulson scolded, though of course only Thor understood him, as he cuddled against Tony from the other side. Natasha lay mostly on top of Clint but somewhat on top of Tony. The lion cubs didn't quite dare to lie on anyone, being slightly heavier than everyone, though evidently quite young as far as cubs go because they were still quite small themselves but they did huddle protectively around them.

Tony did stop trembling or mewing and began to purr.

In an office, a rather annoyed, fluffy orange kitten attempted to dial her cell phone. This was all Tony's fault, she just knew it.

"Meow," Jarvis said through the phone, as Tony's phone couldn't connect, currently being a kitten itself.

All in all, it wasn't the worst almost-apocalypse they'd ever had. Though Natasha might have been a bit disappointed when she found two knives where two small bundles of death had been held. If she was, she never admitted it.

And when the litter of rescue kittens turned up in the common room one day, well, they were superheroes. Rescuing goes along with the job.

The End


End file.
